“There were also piles of the whitest bread, arranged like heaps of wheat on the threshing-floor, and cheeses, piled up in the manner of bricks, formed a kind of wall. Two caldrons of oil, larger than dyers' vats, stood ready for frying all sorts of batter-ware; and, with a couple of stout peels, they shovelled them up when fried, and forthwith immersed them in a kettle of prepared honey that stood near. The men and women cooks were about fifty in number, all clean, all active, and all in good humor. In the bullock's distended belly were sewed up a dozen sucking pigs, to make it savory and tender. The spices of various kinds, which seemed to have been bought, not by the pound, but by the hundredweight, were deposited in a great chest, and open to every hand. In short the preparation for the wedding was all rustic, but in sufficient abundance to have feasted an army.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
2 cups scalded milk ¼ cup sugar or ⅓ cup molasses 1 teaspoon salt 1 yeast cake dissolved in ¼ cup lukewarm water 4⅔ cups coarse entire wheat flour Add sweetening and salt to milk; cool, and when lukewarm add dissolved yeast cake and flour; beat well, cover, and let rise to double its bulk. Again beat, and turn into greased bread pans, having pans one-half full; let rise, and bake. Entire Wheat Bread should not quite double its bulk during last rising. This mixture may be baked in gem pans.
Sources: The passage is from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — ochre cloth, windmill stamp.